A TRANSGENDER woman accused of killing three prostitutes has told a court the women died at the hands of her violent, male, alter ego Douglas.

Donna Perry, 62, is on trial for the shooting deaths of Yolanda Sapp, Kathleen Brisbois and Nickie Lowe, whose bodies were found naked along the Spokane River in 1990.

But the Spokane local, who was known as Douglas Perry before undergoing gender reassignment surgery in Thailand in 2000, insists she is innocent.

Perry was arrested in 2012 after police linked her to the murders through DNA and fingerprint evidence following a stint in jail on federal weapons charges.

Murdered: Yolanda Sapp (left) and Kathleen Brisbois were found shot dead along the SpokanSource:Supplied

Murdered: Yolanda Sapp (left) and Kathleen Brisbois were found shot dead along the SpokanSource:Supplied

New documents tendered in court revealed Perry told detectives that when someone goes from being male to being female “there’s a great downturn in violence” and that she had a sex change operation “as a permanent way to control violence”.

In a 2012 interview, Detective Mark Burbridge put it to Perry that “people who kill multiple victims usually don’t stop killing” and asked her why she stopped at three victims.

Perry replied: “Douglas didn’t stop, Donna stopped it.”

She added: “I’m not going to admit I killed anybody, I didn’t. Donna has killed nobody.” Detective Burbridge replied, “Doug did.” And Perry said, “I don’t know if Doug did or not, it was 20 years ago and I have no idea whether he did or did not.”

The court also heard evidence of Perry’s criminal history which included assault, firearms and explosives charges as well as arrests for soliciting prostitutes in Spokane in 1989.

Detectives believe all three murder victims were working as prostitutes at the time of their deaths.